A letter from a Pasifika university student to his family.
My first memories of university were as an infant. I was six months old when my mum enrolled in a bachelor of arts course at Auckland University. Dad was in and out of the picture, I was barely earth side and there were probably a million other things happening in her world. She made things work – an ability all mothers seem to have down to a fine art. Lukewarm baby formula in hand, I’d be shared around her classmates’ arms between classes. Mum belonged to a group called “Histonesia” that all the brown history majors created. They even had a snazzy lounge all to themselves. I remember those four walls all too well.
Then, it was my turn. In 2019, I began a communications studies and business conjoint degree. A mouthful. Essentially, it’s two degrees that you complete at the same time instead of in succession. To say I received a culture shock would be an understatement. For seven years before stepping foot into my first ever lecture, I was schooled at a decile one, Catholic, predominantly Pasifika, all-boys college in South Auckland. We shared common understandings of faith, family and culture. These concepts were enshrined in our learning. We were usos. Never above, never below, always beside.
It’s fair to say that was not quite the case at tertiary level. Students were quizzed on our political allegiances and… there were Trump supporters. A lot of them! Support for white supremacy within universities started to take off around this time. I sat in a tutorial next to people who thought the beneficiaries “should just get jobs”. They thought guns had a place in society because “rabbits are pests for farmers”. Because of this, I rarely offered my opinions during class.
I had never until that point been the only brown person in the room. Oh, how sheltered I was. Lecturers showed interest in what I had to say, but nobody else did. All I felt was judgement staring at the back of my head. Often there were classes where we’d receive saviour interpretations on South Auckland, then I’d lead the subsequent class discussion by de facto. Note: one thing we don’t talk about enough is how ethnic students are roped into being case studies for culturally unsafe dialogue. Traumatic times for an undergrad, though perhaps it was necessary. As valid as my bewilderment was, this was the real world now.
All my high school friends were away at different universities. Faced with a less than savoury pick of potential mates from within class, I rode solo for a bit. There was this realisation that not everybody gets the toga-wearing, burning couch, discounted Wednesday night clubbing study experience.
In enjoying my own company, I learned valuable lessons about staying rooted in my purpose. I’d be reminded of my nana and papa, whose hard yards make it a privilege for me to even enter those lecture theatre doors. While for some, the university experience rewards them with friends, I was on a journey that stretched hundreds of kilometres of ocean in search of a better life. A great mantle of responsibility was placed on my shoulders to continue down whakapapa lines.
When I was young, Nana would commute between work and home to nurse Mum and relieve the neighbours who volunteered to babysit. Upon buying our family home in the mid 70s, Papa would bike from Māngere East to Mt Wellington before dawn every day for work. After changing careers to take up taxi driving, he’d pick me up and haul me along his school run. Nana worked two jobs for a time, which meant 12 hour (at least) days. I’d tag team with her mopping the floors of a central Auckland mall.
I was there for Mum’s graduation along with a host of loved ones. She was the first in our family to don the mortarboard. I stood perched between my grandparents in the middle of Queen Street on a spring day in 2007, waving to Mum who, on her academic procession, looked back at me with a glimmer of hope. A lot of people assumed she’d drop out of uni the second it became too much. She now tells me that it was I who kept her going. She overturned the odds as a young, Sāmoan, single mum to best place her family for the future.
Like Mum, nothing has and nothing will stop me from fulfilling the migrant dream for all Pacific diaspora: “koaga i le aoga (do good at school)”, “usita’i i ou matua ma tausi fa’alelei (obey your parents and take good care of them)”.
By September, I will have finished my two degrees and crossed that graduation stage. My academic advisor tells me I am the first person in AUT history to have finished a conjoint degree of this type in three and a half years. Has it felt longer than that? Oh boy, yes. My final semester is about to be the hangover from tireless learning, personal growth, accomplishment and failure I’ve undergone as a student.
Why stop there, right? After I shake hands with an undoubtedly important academic who’ll give me a piece of paper which cost way too much money, I’m jumping into a master of communication studies. My bank account suggests I shouldn’t fork out a student loan for said qualification, so fingers crossed the pūtea kaitiaki are listening.
Right now, my sights are set on the graduation stage, the finish line, the end of the course. This course at least. My parchments will add to what’s becoming a mighty collection draped across our living room wall. To Mum, Nana and Papa – the ula lole are yours to wear for a lifetime of sacrifice. O la’u aiga peleina, I hope I’m doing you proud.
This is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.